Kryptonite Argues Its Case

In at least three chapters, Naked Conversations mentions Kryptonite, the bike lock company, who failed to respond to a blogosphere frenzy in September 2004.  We cite them as an unglossed example in Chapter 10—Doing it Wrong.  We cover them yet again in our soon-to-be-posted Chapter 13 “Blogging in a Crisis,” as an example of the bad things that happen when a company doesn’t do exactly that.

We are guilty of having used online resources, particularly a Fortune Magazine article as our primary resources, never contacting the company itself. So they took the initiative and contacted us. Donna M. Tocci, Kryptonite’s PR manager, has proven do be anything but unresponsive.  She is clearly passionate and more of an authority on the subject than we are. Through a series of email conversations, she has argued her company’s case to us in compelling form revealing several insights we had not previously heard.

We want to know what you think.

Following are excerpts from our conversations taken from her email stiiched together from several emails that have vollleyed back-and-forth over the past several days. While we have extracted and stitched, we have taken care to remain true to her cont

Donna’s Comments:

In the first two-three weeks we worked 18-20 hour days, every day, to formulate a plan regarding the locks and reply to the folks that were coming to us - consumers, dealers, distributors and media.  Again, not being able to rewrite history, we just didn't have the man or woman power to go and answer every forum question or blogger comment - and there were quite a few, as you know.  As the weeks went on and I did comment on some inaccuracies, we were blasted for 'not getting it'.  Apparently, you aren't supposed to correct bloggers.Being new to the space, admittedly, we backed off a little bit at that time because, we really didn't need to rile up anyone else.

At that point, we were headed to our largest tradeshow of the year to talk to all of our dealers (a fact the blogosphere didn't know either) at the end of September where we were arguably one of the more busy booths.  We also were in the midst of the lock exchange program in the Fall, which, as I mentioned was and is our top priority.   To be honest, as we turned Fall into Winter and then into Spring we wanted to move past this issue and was stirring up the hornet's nest worth it?  We did talk to some media who are active online in the Spring just to give them an update and explain some of the inaccuracies.  Most wasn't printed because of the sensational aspect of the 'disaster' back in September, which was rehashed.  So much for that plan.”

***

“Saying that if we had a blog back in September may have helped our situation is probably a correct statement.  Saying that we wouldn't have been working 18-20 hours a day because we had a blog is not accurate. Communicating to our customers was only one piece, albeit an important piece, of the equation.  Remember, we still had to get new locks into production 4 months before schedule, find a way to ship them here from Asia, get a registration program in place,  figure out how to get locks to consumers, dealers and distributors and get all the software programs to 'play nice' together.  We did all this by working all those hours.  We did most of  that all in 8 business days.

“We also have many customers that, believe it or not, do not follow blogs or forums for whatever reason.  Those customers continued to call and email.  Distributors, dealers, consumers and media all needed individual attention, and got it from us.   They also relied on traditional media, who were still calling and emailing us at a rapid rate at that point.  You both know, from  years of experience, that the media want their own story.  There is only so much they will pick up from a blog or website- they want a scoop.  They need to talk to you in person.  Get a quote that is all their own.  And they got it from either me or from the head of Action Sports.

***

“As you mentioned in your chapter, yes, there were lots of meetings and lots of planning before we announced our full plan.  Countless.  However, please give this a thought - if we didn't have all of our ducks in a row, announced the plan and then couldn't follow through with that plan for whatever reason (manufacturing, shipping, software) what would have been good about that?  Don't you think that would have made the issue even worse?  We absolutely did.

So...would a blog have helped?  To your point, quite possibly.  Would it have solved our issues?  No.

As for showing our customers we care well, again, we might differ on this point.  We may not have communicated as well as we should have in September (you are thinking 'understatement'), but what we did do and have continued to do is stand by our customers, all of our customers, without exception.

That got lost along the way as people have been using us as an example of what not to do.  How about what we did do?  We were not the only company that used tubular cylinders.  However, we are the only company that has implemented a plan of this magnitude worldwide.  We stopped selling all tubular cylinder products immediately, including ones that were not effected.  We have replaced hundreds of thousands of locks worldwide, much to the delight of the majority of our customers.   Imagine having a 15-20
year old lock, that you have used regularly, being replaced with a brand new one at no cost to you.

A point where I'd agree with you in your chapter is that there wasn't as much detailed coverage about the lock exchange program in the media or on blogs as there was of the 'crisis'.  Why?  Again, with your collective experience, you understand that controversy 'sells'.  Turn on your local news at night.  How many good stories do you see?  Or is it all about crime, death, accidents, fires etc?  I'll bet you don't see stories on too many of the good things that are happening every single day in your community.  Same thing on blogs.  When they were railing on Kryptonite there were hundreds of comments.  When Kryptonite stepped up to the plate, not so much.  And that isn't just about Kryptonite, we are but one example. It is, sadly, something that happens all the time.  I hardly ever turn on my local news because of this; it's too depressing.  World news isn't much better now is it?

I have learned enough to know that the blogosphere is huge and one person can't respond to every single blog entry about a company in the midst of a crisis.  Especially if they don't have their own blog.  What one person, or a small company, can do it research, before a crisis hits, which is always a time challenge, isn't it? But now more important than ever!   In that research, identify a list of folks to keep informed should a crisis hit - traditional media as well as recognized, credible bloggers.  At least that is what we've done.  Might still not be 'right', but we are getting there.)

***

We asked Donna a few questions:

1. I see you are now carefully watching the blogosphere for comments on your company.  When did you start doing so and why?

Yes, we do watch the blogosphere pretty closely.  We've watched blogs and forums for awhile, even previous to September [when the Kryptonite crisis occurred], however, it is a much bigger part of my weekly activities since then.  Watching and monitoring what is being said is one thing, jumping into it is another.  Blogs are a new adventure and there is a learning curve. I visit about 20 blogs daily, just like I go to bicycleretailer.com or bikebiz.com or any other information source.  Yours is on that list, by the way.  I also go to some of the blog search engines and look for tidbits of information that we might want to monitor.

There is a lot of incorrect information out there about the issue in September and, personally, that gets frustrating to read over and over. For example, all of this didn't start with a blogger at all.  What I find interesting is that so many people in the blogosphere have told our story with such certainty, yet have never contacted me or asked for any of the correct information.  I'm more than happy to share our information - good or bad, which is why I'm so glad you emailed today.  Generally, I look at it like a game of telephone when I was a kid....you say something to the person next to you, who repeats it to the person next to them and so on and so on.  By the time the 10th person hears it and recites it, it's been changed, but taken as fact.  Then that 'fact' is repeated again and again.

2. Is Kryptonite considering starting a blog? Why or why not?

We have tossed around the idea of creating a Kryptonite blog in the last few months.  At first we decided against it  because would anyone really want to hear about locks all the time?  Truly, think about that.  A large company like Microsoft has a variety of things to talk about, but a lock company?  A month or so later, we revisited the idea and came up with a few variations of 'just locks', but then  the 'who' is an issue.  We only have 25 people here at Kryptonite.  Although this is still a learning process for us, we do know that if we ever did a blog, it couldn't come from me, the dreaded PR person.  So, in a long, round about way, the answer is 'not at this time."  We haven't given up on the idea, but for now, we are still focusing on getting all of the new locks out to our customers, which has been our top priority all along.

At the risk of being 'too PR' I do want to tell you that in nine months we have replaced over 350,000 locks to consumers, dealers and distributors worldwide.  Does that matter?  To the blogosphere, I don't know, but it matters very much to us, because, at the end of the day, and in the middle of the day and at the beginning of the day, we do care about our customers. End "PR Speak."

  3. Knowing what you now know, how would Kryptonite have responded to the
      BIC picking revelation today as opposed to how you handled it when
      the story broke?

I'm so glad you asked me this.  To answer it correctly, let me go backwards for a minute.  It's been said, over and over, that Kryptonite "ignored" the issue for days until some article or other came out and 'made' us look at the issue.  There's that game of telephone again.  The first day of the claim that 'all Kryptonite locks' were bad we quickly looked into it to see if there was any validity to it.    At that time we also answered any emails that came in about this claim that we were working on the possible issue and would get back to them within 24-48 hours.  Now, in hindsight, maybe we should have posted this statement on the website. But, at the time, we didn't know what the potential issue was, if there was any issue at all.   All the talk of us 'knowing' about this for years simply is not true.

The next two days were spent fielding calls from customers and reporters - yes, I was talking to the media right from the beginning.  I fielded over a hundred media requests in that first week.  Our customer service team talked or wrote to all consumers that called or emailed in those first few days. Most important, we needed to formulate a plan for our customers and began to do so.  We put out formal statements to the media by mid-week (you are thinking 'archaic', but I can't change history) and by the end of the week with a plan outline (day 4 and 5), which also went on our website.  I know people wanted answers more quickly because the Internet is just about real time.  However, the back end logistics of putting something like a lock exchange program together are quite detailed.     Could we have posted information by earlier on our site?  Sure.  It still would have been basically 'we're working on it'.

Yes, we could have posted to the website earlier, but other than that, there wasn't much different we could do.  We made the conscious decision to not answer questions on forums for a few reasons.  Most of our communications to consumers via email or telephone were posted to forums almost immediately.  If you'd like to talk more about all of this or get more details, just give me a ring and I'll be happy to talk to you about it.  I just envision your eyes glazing over at this point in this long email!

As for what we'd do completely different now, I can say that while we were a casual observer of blogs before, we're now starting to create relationships with some bloggers.  Not to push our information on, but just to start a dialog and have an open line of communication.  If, goodness forbid, something like this happens again, I'd hope either those folks would come to me for information or I could give them correct information and they'd decide if they wanted to talk about it or not.

We have asked our publisher to hold off on Chapter 10 pending revisions.  We are holding off on revisions until we hear from you.

Comments

[David Tebbutt]

"All the talk of us 'knowing' about this for years simply is not true."

Hmmm. The New Cyclist magazine article in 1992 made the issue clear although it only hinted at the procedures and didn't name the lock manufacturers. It did, however, describe the locks well enough for Kryptonite to be aware of the issue. Assuming they read the magazine or it was approached by one or more of its readers.

[Jeremy Wright]

Personally I'd be weary of this 12-month later PR-spin type stuff. The reality is that they didn't respond in any cohesive way, not even to admitting there was a problem.

Publicly, they ignored it. Which is the same thing as ignoring it. The first the millions of bloggers and blog readers read about this was the lock-exchange program, which didn't even state that there was anything wrong with the locks.

Good on you for going to them, but it's still a story of blog ignorance.

[Tara 'Miss Rogue' Hunt]

Puh-lease!

RE: "Apparently, you aren't supposed to correct bloggers.Being new to the space, admittedly, we backed off a little bit at that time because, we really didn't need to rile up anyone else."

It's a typical PR move to shy away from any sort of controversy and conflict. If Kryptonite spoke to their audience in a human voice and stuck with it, they wouldn't have been singled out as the flacks they are. Seriously. They could have responded MUCH differently.

They are just still avoiding responsibility on this issue. Entirely. Not once did she say, "We f&*ked up". Our lock sucked. Instead, she hides behind corporate beaurocracy and PR babble. Blech.

Write your chapter. Please.

[Todd Van Hoosear]

Tara, please don't blame the PR people here. You wrote that "if Kryptonite spoke to their audience in a human voice and stuck with it, they wouldn't have been singled out as the flacks they are."

Uh, no. If Kryptonite had gotten their act together back in 1992 when this first broke, they wouldn't have been in the mess they were in. Is that the fault of the flacks? No! It's the fault of the corporate management and the engineering teams for not responding way back then.

Corporations are not human beings (except in a very strict, and very odd, legal interpretation). They're large organizations with multiple stakeholders. A human voice wouldn't have helped Kryptonite. Better management would've. A good crisis communication plan would've too, sure. Fault the communication team there. But c'mon, "human voice?" Kryptonite customers didn't want a human voice. They wanted to find out if their bike could get stolen and what to do about it. Whether that comes in a friendly voice or legalese is for the most part irrelevent. It's the content that matters, not the delivery.

How much does human voice really help a PR person when her company's lawyers and management team are in damage control mode? This was a systemic failure of Kryptonite, not a failure of its PR team. From a pure PR perspective, Kryptonite didn't actually do that badly! By the time the crisis first his the blogosphere till the time they had a full product replacement press release in place was less than a week! Maybe not Tylenol response times, but people weren't dying here, and as far as I can tell, nobody was even reporting a sudden rash of new thefts encouraged by the breaking news.

PR people get a bad rap oftentimes because they tend to reflect the personalities--voices if you will--of their management teams. Whether that voice is human or not depends on many factors outside the control of the PR person, who usually never has a seat on the management team. Don't dis the flack. Dis the "man" the flack works for, and encourage companies like Krypto to give their communications people a seat at the table. Maybe you'll see some change then.

[Anon]

This shows the big problem with blogs. Say what you will about journalists, but bloggers generally don't check their facts (some do, but not most). They just repeat what they heard on another blog or offer their own (often uninformed) opinion. Lots of times bloggers adopt a mob mentality in going after a company when they really don't know all the issues. Yesterday was 'everyone pile onto Kryptonite day'. Today is 'everyone pile onto Dell day'. Every day is 'everyone pile onto Microsoft day'. This is not useful. Most bloggers have lots of opinions of the 'right' way to do things, but would be totally lost if they were the ones in charge of a company and had to deal with all of the issues for real.

[shel Israel]

Anon,

You make a good point. I might quote you in the book, if you would merely identify yourself as a real person. Taking an anonymous position makes me wonder where you are really coming from.

[Adrian Lee]

I hope some of the people commenting on this story remmeber there is a life outside the blogosphere, and there are actually still a pretty large number of people who don't even know what a blog is.

Whether it's PR speak or not, one thing is for sure, having a blog would not have solved the problem. It would just have helped inform a few more people a bit sooner.

[Jeremy Wright]

Adrian: Nobody ever said everyone has a blog.

But, more than 20 million people who read blogs were aware of the issue in just 1 week's time.

Like it or hate it, that has to be responded to, and the reality (by their PR person's own admission) is that they didn't do that in any cohesive way.

Having a blog would have allowed them to speak to bloggers. The same way they spoke to the people who emailed them.

If an email is worth responding to, why isn't a blog post?

[Bob]

I don't understand why they should care about blogs. They make locks. And I sent in three locks with no information about when and where I bought them. They paid all of the shipping as they should, and returned to me within three weeks three new locks. That sounds pretty responsible to me.

[Oscar Eg Gensmann]

> Having a blog would have allowed them to speak to bloggers.

I don't get it? Why do you need a blog to respond to bloggers?

Sometimes I think the whole blogosphere has become a little to much... "do it our way or we shall bestow great pain upon ye. Do not underestimate us, we control the mighty sphere and together we will make the world tremble beneath our feets.".

What's wrong with simply posting some information on a website, about the issue?

[Jeremy Wright]

Oscar, that would have worked as well, if they had such an area of their website. They didn't even do that though. Personally I don't really care if a company actually uses blogs or not. But there's a massive marketplace and communications opportunity with blogging that is real, and that ignoring won't make go away.

Publicly, Kryptonite ignored blogs. I've looked and I can't find a single "Kryptonite responds" type of post (until this one).

And, yes, I'd emailed and called Kryptonite previously to try and talk through this story. I'm glad they're getting their "side" out (a year later), but at this point it doesn't matter.

The company's moved on. The blogosphere has moved on. And clients have ultimately either moved on or left the company behind. This spin doesn't change anything.

[Alexander B Scoble]

I don't think that they really needed a "blog" per se. They could have simply put on their front page or in another highly visible and easy to read place that they were aware of the issue, what they were doing to take care of the problem and that they were sorry for any inconvenience their customers may have experienced because of possibly faulty locks.

The problem wasn't that they didn't do anything, the problem is that they didn't really communicate to the masses in an effective way that they were doing something and that they were sorry that customers were going through pain.

They didn't control the conversation by being proactive. Instead they were reactive and only responded to requests made to them.

This is why they took such a hit on the issue.

Much better to be up front about an issue before customers are even aware of it, than to try to do a backdoor fix and only tell people what to do once the fix is in.

[Alfred Thompson]

Robert and Shel, Since this is a big story in your book and in blogging why didn't *you* contact Kryptonite for their side of the story? Writing something in a blog is not the same as starting a conversation unless you already know the person you want to converse with is reading.

[Nick]

Why couldn't they just be honest at the time. That's the point of the blog: the porous membrane. If, in fact, they were working 20 hour days to remedy the situation, they could have come out and said, "yeah, we see the problem. the whole company is putting in 20 hour days to solve it. we'll keep you updated as we go along."

Period. Done. Not overpromising - an honest answer. They don't need a blog, they have a website. THe idea that a "blog" is some special piece of software is ridiculous. Blogging software simply gives you an easy means of updating the website.

Fire the PR people and just hire an honest person to communicate honestly to the public. If that means your company will have to eat millions of dollars as a result, then you're operating on a bad business plan.

[Oscar Eg Gensmann]

Jeremy, I agree totally with you on the business possibilities with blogging. Lately though it just seems that it's beginning to be more a question of having a blog and not to have something worth saying. As Donna mentions, would a blog about bicycle locks really attract that much of an audience, making it a good business idea.

But again people have probably moved on from the specific case, bloggers and company alike. Let's focus on happy thoughts... I suggest chocolate...mmmm....chocolate.. ;-)

[Todd V.]

I agree with Alex--you don't *need* a blog--though you certainly should be aware of them.

Alex wrote: "They didn't control the conversation by being proactive. Instead they were reactive and only responded to requests made to them." Bingo.

What you need is an effective communication policy, crisis plans for your worst nightmares, communication channels and control over the discussion. Kryptonite's communication suffered because they didn't have those key elements.

Nick, I'm gonna defend the PR profession again here, because we "flacks" don't do enough of it. I think you're write that a message like what you propose ("yeah, we see the problem. the whole company is putting in 20 hour days to solve it. we'll keep you updated as we go along.") would've been a great immediate response (along with a message to keep visiting their website for more information and updates).

But Nick, to draw the conclusion that Krypto's PR team was dishonest based on its inability to respond in a rapid manner is unfair. Incompetent, perhaps. But dishonest? Hardly. As I mentioned earlier, this is a systemic problem. They were caught wholly unprepared, and didn't have a mechanism in place to address this possible development.

How many 25-people firms have crisis communication plans in place? Really. This is not deception. It is poor planning and an inability to respond quickly? Fireable offenses? Typically not. Learning experiences? Most certainly! Deception? Certainly not.

[Andrew Denny]

Donna Tocci was doing so well, until she uttered the immortal words "I'm so glad you asked me that". That's when it fell apart for me - the standard PR response to a difficult question that can't be answered properly.

She's also confusing blogs and websites - or rather, like so many people she's separating them in her mind.

Blogs *are* websites. A website can simply have a blogging element, which I would say is: The Unfolding Story. Kryptonite's website didn't have The Unfolding Story.

It's been said that every General fights the previous war. Kryptonite fought the previous war brilliantly.

Unfortunately, bloggers were like 'insurgents' (a term I'd never heard of until about two years ago). They blew a hole in General Kryptonite's war plan.

[Nicole Simon]

Let's see.

I have seen a very compelling video on how to unlock this lock. I have read (less intensly) the coverage aroud it, but the buzz has been sure around my news reader.

This - how many months later? - is the first time, I have ever seen mentioned a reaction from the company.

"Oh, we worked very very hard. We did not manage to control the crisis but we sure did work hard! And we had attention at our booth, attention good!" In other words: If they tried to answer everything like this where they thought answering would be worth it, then it is no wonder, that they did not get anything done.

"What I find interesting is that so many people in the blogosphere have told our story with such certainty, yet have never contacted me or asked for any of the correct information. " Hello, McFly?

Wow, and really, following 20 blogs. And some searches.

To sum up:
1) They obviously still don't understand blogs.
2) But now they think, they do.
3) If anything like this happens again, they will be busted again.

A quick hop to their website confirms this expression. You should give them your book as a gift and hope, they are not only able to read but also explain.

I for one will never ever buy a Kryptonite lock. Less because of their problem. But more because of the point, that they still do not care.

Not enough for this day and age.

[Jake]

My name is Jake, from communityguy.com, and I've actually interviewed Donna at length via email. She's great, and while I don't quite see eye to eye with her conclusions about the situation, I can NOT fault her effort in the slightest (which included returning my emails from a fever-ridden sick bed).

If you're interested, check out the Community Guy snapcast (short podcast) where I discuss the subject with a Lee (commoncraft.com) and Chris (socialcustomer.com).

http://www.communityguy.com/index.cfm?commentID=297

Also, check out the blog entries from my site about this:

http://www.communityguy.com/index.cfm?commentID=289

http://www.communityguy.com/index.cfm?commentID=285

http://www.communityguy.com/index.cfm?commentID=282\

http://www.communityguy.com/index.cfm?commentID=251

[Anonymous Coward]

Just listening to the PR person is like hearing fingernails on a blackboard. Every nuance of her attitude grates. She really underlines why you would never want to buy anything from a bunch of defensive time-servers. They are probably correct (for a short time horizon here) not to reveal to the world what they are like.

[shel Israel]

A couple of Points:

(1)To Alfred Thompson, who said we should have contacted Kryptonite before writing about them,you are absolutely right. We are writing on a tight deadline and in some cases made decisions to just use public record. This is never a good idea and the next time I write a book, I'll make certain I have ample time to talk directly with everyone covered.

(2) To anonymous coward--I think you have selected a good name for yourself. I am growing very tired of negative comments from people who refuse to identify themselves and let us know why the have whatever perspectives they have.

(3) Donna Tocci--I think it would be a good idea to jump into this conversation wherever you think its necessary. You do have the right to remain silent, but you may score more points with both this audience and the authors if you jump in.

We will keep this open for another day or so. But that tight deadline I mentioned means we need to close off the chapter and get it to our publisher.

[Chris]

The blogosphere isn't exactly rational. Compare Kryptonite with Kensington Microsaver (http://www.micropersuasion.com/2005/05/kensington_lock.html). Both companies have products with easily exploitable flaws. Both companies products are trying to product expensive things (a $30 Kryptonite lock for a $1000 bike and a $50 Kensington Lock for a $1500 laptop).

Kryptonite replaces 350,000 locks all over the world free of charge, even paying for the shipping. (I got mine in Japan even though I bought the lock in the US). Kensington ignores the blogosphere.

Today, Shel and everyone else blames Kryptonite as a great example for how not to treat the blogosphere. They even are going to be written up in a book and probably business school case studies. But Kensington slips under the radar doesn't need to fix their product, doesn't need to replace any existing product and theives can take laptops very easily with no liability on Kensington because the lock is still intact. And yet nobody remembers Kensington or crows about how they'll never buy their products again.

The case study lesson: ignore the blogosphere unless you can perfectly solve the problem. An imperfect solution (like recalling locks without admitting guilt, telling the story, etc.) is worse than ignoring the blogosphere altogher. Since a perfect solution is pretty hard (especially for a 25 person company), don't bother.

[shel Israel]

Chris,

You should go back and actually read the posted chapter in question. Kensington was treated in about equal terms to Kryptonite. We did not blame Kryptonite or Kennsington of anything, but reported that they suffered a great deal for ignoring the Blogosphere. The point of our chapter is that companies that are not prepared to deal with the blogosphere will suffer, and we make the point again in the next Chapter that will be posted. I don't think Donna is accusing us anything along the line of blame. She is arguing that the blogosphere:
(1) Listened to each other without trying to get the company's side of the story, (2)Told her she just didn't get it when she did try to talk to them and (3)now pays much closer attention to what is being said on the blogosphere which I believe is why Donna chose to contact us after we posted Chapter 10. She said we got a few facts wrong and I think she will also agree that in our case, they were minor facts.

[casey]

Wow, I didn't even know about the exchange program! (Maybe b/c nobody blogged about it :P) So are they still exchanging locks or is it too late?

[Chris]

Shel, you got me that I hadn't read the chapter first :) I agree with the point of your chapter and have very few qualms about how you present the two cases.

What seems at odds, however, is the outcome which seems irresponsible to ignore. Kryptonite was visibly hurt in terms of 350,000 locks and a tarnished reputation (as shown by the comments in this thread) with almost no forgiveness for generally doing the right thing. This posting has rekindled the anger and distrust of the company to a large degree.

My contention is that people, have generally forgotten Kensington. While it helps that they were second, I think the executive/communications manager who's reading your book needs to understand that the blog world is very sensitive, finicky and emotionally charged. Doing the right thing is not enough and may not also yield the expected response.

I'm not sure how or if this belongs in your book but I definately think it belongs in this thread (since the blog is an free standing entity on its own even if its purpose is to help you develop the book).